What's in a name?

Apologies to Shakey for pilfering his words for the title of this entry, but it seems that I am incapable of original thought just now. Last night, during a rare foray into the seething mass of adverbs and POV switches that is Tyrone's NaNoWriMo novel, I hit upon what seemed to be a subtle and nicely mellifluous title for it. For a happy moment this inspired happy daydreams of seeing said title on said novel (now with its adverbs under control), and made me think that one day I might actually get the damned thing finished. This was nice, as ice ages have passed more swiftly than I am currently editing.

However (and of course there is a however), a quick jaunt to Google was typically disheartening. As you have no doubt surmised, a book of the name I had hit on already exists (as near as damn it, except that the existing tome prefers a definite article). I realise that this shouldn't matter. But incidents of this nature bring out my worst dog-in-the-manger side (no dog jokes, thank you), and now I like the title a billion times better for knowing I can't use it.

In the spirit of this post, I will close with the words of another. As Captain Darling so wisely said: 'Bugger.'

Gee willikers

Have I really been away since February? Good lord, how time does fly (and yes, I do know that's a spanking great cliché but I'm rather out of practice at this writing malarkey). I have no amusing anecdotes with which to regale you or to explain my prolonged absence; I've merely been indulging in a prolonged spell of lassitude after dragging myself through the gloopy bog of turgid tedium that was my last 'creative' 'writing' course. I would tell you all about it, but if I start harping on about it I will only get annoyed at myself for having wasted the time on money on it in the first place. Well, not so much the time, as I ignored most of the exercises. Which may explain why I got so little out of it. But the exercises were about as inspiring as cold rice pudding. So I ignored them. It was a viciously boring circle.

That's quite enough from me. Have a haiku instead.

Hellooo..? Anybody there?

Dearie me, it really has been a while this time, hasn't it? I've been in a bit of a meltdown state lately, what with the course (hate it), work (feel strangely attached to it) and general laziness (love it). I won't bore you with endless invective about the course, but suffice it to say that the one thing it surely has taught me is that it's time to stop studying how to be a writer, and instead take a proper bash at actually being one.

Work has been hard, and, at times, heart-rending. In November it was announced that the site would close due to the economic crisis (and let me say here that I am heartily sick of the jauntily alliterative 'Credit Crunch'. It's crisis; it's recession - it's people's lives). Many of my colleagues worked their last day on December 23rd - 'and a happy Christmas to you, too' - and others are due to go at the end of this month. I am among the extremely lucky few who may be safe, as there is the possibility for me to transfer to head office. Yes, it's much more travelling, but at least all that sitting in traffic will give me time to count my lucky stars. Assuming there isn't another gobshite in a van out there just waiting to ram into me...

And as for the general laziness...I'd love to tell you all about it, but I'm afraid it's now my nap time.

One small step...

You may have noticed over the past several months that I found my last OU course something of a challenge. More accurately, the kind of challenge that results the inability to string two words together, coupled with overworked cranial matter dripping slowly from the ears. I chivvied myself along with the delightful notion that once the hell of study was over, I could spend a happy few months writing before the next course (in creative writing - insert appropriately hysterical noise here) begins, but I was thwarted by the aforementioned brain dribble. Even when, as recently, I had an idea, I just couldn't get the words out: I would sit, ignoring the blank screen and inwardly screaming I can't be arsed!! Frankly, this was disturbing, as I had never conceived that it could be possible for me to get any lazier.

However, by the cunning application of self-bribery ('write for 10 minutes, then you can play all the spider solitaire you want'), I finally managed to finish something. 5,000 words of pretty mediocre stuff isn't much to crow about, but it is a relief to be back in the land of characters and dialogue rather than in the scary real world. Besides, this story got me back in touch with Tyrone, and it's always a blast to spend time with him. Just don't tell him I said that.

A write mess

It's fair to say that things have not been going altogether swimmingly of late. You may have surmised from the slightly hysterical limerick below that I managed to get into a car accident (less than a month after passing my test - I assume this is some kind of record), and while I fully accept all the platitudes about how the only important thing is that nobody was hurt, it nevertheless left me feeling pretty disillusioned about how whole driving business. Now, I say that nobody was injured, but my fellow prangee is claiming all sorts of sudden and debilitating illnesses, all of which will, I assume, be miraculously cured by a wad of notes from the insurance companies. All most irritating. As Radiohead would say, Karma police, arrest this man...

Writing hasn't been going well either, largely because I can't do it. Every day I sit eagerly before the PC with the sincere intention of rattling off a few hundred words or editing a chapter or two of Tyrone's novel, but even as Word lumbers to life, my attention begins to wander. Next thing I know I'm lazing around on Facebook fussing an imaginary dog or playing infuriatingly addictive word games, or I'm succumbing to my crippling spider solitaire habit, or buying useless tat off Ebay. Anything, it seems, other than do the one thing I yearn to do when I'm at work or otherwise unable to write. Then, before I know it, the evening has gone, and I'm left feeling thoroughly narked at myself and my lack of application. Sigh.

I have, however, managed to complete one writing-related task: I have booted my gorilla-y kids' novel off to try its luck with another agent, as the last bunch of guttersnipes I tried didn't even bother to reply - which I find intensely irritating, having enclosed the stipulated SAE. Fine, they don't have to like the story, but there's no need to be so goshdarned rude.

OK, I'll put an end to this aimless rant now. I know it's particularly long and self-pitying, but it has been a while.

Beep beep!

Well, well. Who'd have thunk it? After just over a year of juddering, stalling and screaming (and that's just from the instructors), not to mention a frankly horrifying amount of cash spent, I can now drive! On my own, and everything! I can exclusively reveal that my examiner from this morning is without a doubt the most generous man in England - he seemed to view my rolling gracefully backwards on a hill start as nothing more than a pleasant diversion from the dreary business of proceeding forwards, and he accepted that stalling needlessly at junctions merely adds to the interest of the drive. What a lovely chap. I hope his team wins the DSA Euro 2008 sweepstake, and more especially I hope that the sour-faced harpie who glowered throughout the whole of my first test has got Switzerland.

Car-nage MK II

EXAMINER and VIKI take their seats in the car. EXAMINER looks on as VIKI engages in brief but lively struggle with recalcitrant seatbelt.

EXAMINER: Ok, during the test, please continue straight ahead unless I ask you to do otherwise. When you're ready, please start the car and move off.

VIKI turns key in ignition. Various lights on the dasboard come on. VIKI turns key again, vigorously, and car whinnies into life. VIKI wrestles with gear stick, remembers clutch pedal, then stalls car.

VIKI: Ah. Third gear.

EXAMINER gazes straight ahead. VIKI selects correct gear, pulls out, indicates and then releases handbrake. EXAMINER makes rapid succession of jottings on clipboard.

EXAMINER: At the crossroads, please turn right.

VIKI indicates left, stalls at junction, and eventually proceeds straight ahead.

EXAMINER fishes extra biros from pockets and jots with renewed vigour.

EXAMINER: Please pull up on the left when it's safe and convenient to do so.

VIKI, with a squeal of brakes, pulls up slightly to the left of the central road markings, exactly opposite somebody's driveway.

EXAMINER (still jotting): Please move on when you're ready.

VIKI selects gear and applies foot to brake pedal. Car stalls.

VIKI: Oh dear. (in tones of desperate jocularity) Can I start this test again?

EXAMINER (with the fixed smile of someone trying to placate a lunatic): Just take a deep breath and think about what you're doing.

VIKI complies, and moves off. A PEDESTRIAN is crossing the road ahead. PEDESTRIAN sees car approach, and begins to dawdle, grinning evilly.

VIKI contemplates slowing down, but right foot disagrees. VIKI speeds up. PEDESTRIAN's grin switches to expression of abject terror.

EXAMINER applies her full weight to dual controls; car screeches to a halt.

EXAMINER abandons jotting in favour of telling a rosary.

VIKI eventually bunnyhops to a halt outside test centre.

VIKI: That didn't go too well.

EXAMINER (relinquishing white-knuckle grip on dashboard): Miss Lane, I'm sorry to say you haven't passed the driving test on this occasion. Would you like me to explain why?

VIKI: Do you have time before your next test?

EXAMINER laughs thinly, and warms to task of enumerating VIKI's errors. Some time later, EXAMINER disembarks, meets VIKI's instructor crossing road, wrestles him to the ground and garrotes him with her hi-vis vest.

Return of the Hat...

I'M BACK!!!!

*Dusts cobwebs off blog*
Well, that was a fun eight-or-so months. If, that is, your idea of fun is being clobbered mercilessly about the head with Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot. Quite frankly, I can think of nicer ways to spend my time. But never mind - the course is over, the final (and unspeakably evil) essay is written and awaits posting. Let it not concern us now that said essay is a steaming pile of the smelly stuff - the time to worry about that is August, when the results come out. I expect my results letter will have all the possible grades scored out with an angry red biro, and will instead bear the legend: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? THIS IS UNIVERSITY LEVEL STUDY, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!
But never mind. It's the journey that counts, not the destination - right?

Whoop whoop whoopitty-whoop!

Regular readers (if I still have any of those exalted beings, after all my essay-enforced absences) will be surprised, and possibly dismayed, to find two consecutive cheery posts, but there's nothing I can do about that. I found out today that one of my short stories has been accepted for publication. Huzzah!

Angst-lovers will be delighted to know that, since my last post, I have managed to fail my driving test in quite spectacular fashion. Details will follow once I've stopped feeling quite so pleased with myself.

WHOOP! WHOOP!!!

I was going to start by apologising for tootling my own trumpet, but actually I'm not sorry at all. Many thanks to John for bringing my attention to a nice nugget of good news - the New Writer magazine has charitably awarded me a runners-up spot in its annual competition. My anti-hero Tyrone has done the biz for me, gor luv 'im.
Sometimes the word 'gobsmacked' just isn't enough, so let me just add that I am
dee-f***ing-lighted. (And no, that's not meant to sound sarcastic.)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

LITERARY AGENTS IN 'PAPERCLIP' SHOCKER

Pernickety Hat can exclusively reveal a sinister conspiracy at the heart of the writing industry. Our source, a 30-something writer who not only demanded to be named but also asked us to include samples of her writing in this story in brazen attempt to gain publicity, believes that she has discovered just why it is so difficult for aspiring writers to get into print.

'It's the agents,' explains our source. 'They don't actually read anything you send them.'

She claims to have sent a synopsis and sample chapters to a number of agents, only to receive rejections within a matter of days.

'I thought, at first, that they had simply discerned my writing to be the pile of tosh I secretly fear it to be,' she continues. 'But then it clicked. The same thing kept happening, and I realised then that something sinister was going on. Each time, my manuscript looked untouched - except for the fact that the agency kept the paperclip.'

Pernickety Hat has investigated these claims, and is now in a position to reveal the truth. The agency industry is nothing more than an elaborate scam, aimed at depriving needy writers of paperclips. We urge all writers to rebel against this behaviour, and to staple their manuscripts without further delay. Together, we can make a difference and bring an end to this evil paperclip-snatching conspiracy.

General aimless waffle

I haven't bored you with one of my Pointless Life Updates for a while, so here goes.

Driving is coming along reasonably well, even if I am still prone to sudden outbreaks of gross numptiness. On the plus side, I managed NOT to have an accident with some oblivious old biddy who thought it appropriate to signal in one direction, pull out of a junction and stop horizontally across the carriageway in front of me, before sitting there blinking foggily at her windscreen wipers. On the other hand, I can still stall it without the slightest provocation. Recently, I was waiting at traffic lights with a heavy-browed member of the White Van Man tribe virtually parked in my boot when I spectacularly failed to set off at the appropriate moment. White Van Man was obviously somewhat aggrieved, which made me feel a good deal better.

Work is getting better. We now have a temp in to help out, and a lot of the pressure has been taken off me. Never mind that this temp is a chap of unmitigated and quite astounding weirdness. I'd tell you more, but I suspect he would find out and do something painful and drastic to me with an automatic pencil and a bottle of Tippex.

My Open University course is still something akin to a blood-sucking monster, lapping up every spare bit of time, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. Of course, I don't actually understand a word of it - especially since it turned its attention to T. S. Eliot - but it's nice to mumble words like 'Vorticism' and 'metaphysical realm' to myself whilst assuming a learned expression.

Writing...well. It's not happening. And I miss it horribly. No ideas, no words, no anything. I'm supposed to be studying today (I'm supposed to be studying now, rather than indulging in blogly waffle, for that matter) but I may sneak off to play on one of those plot generation sites instead. If I'm not back later with a bit of writing, you can assume that didn't work either.

That's all, I think. You can wake up now.

Happy New Year!

Here's wishing everyone all the best for a fruitful and happy 2008. Now I'm off to obliterate what remains of the festive Pringles before reality kicks in and I have to go trailing dolefully back to work tomorrow.

Where do the holidays go?

Stuck for that perfect Christmas gift..?

Then look no further than Amazon. Don't be put off by the fact that I'm in this book - it contains some truly brilliant writing by a lovely bunch of people. Go on, buy one. You deserve a treat.

:-)

Just in case you were thinking I'd whined myself away to nothing...

A good thing happened yesterday - a nice surprise in the post. No, not my kids' manuscript finally staggering home from the agents who said about three months ago that they reply within a month. I suspect that that particular bundle of papers was long since shredded for hamster bedding.

Anyway. Some time ago I ordered some gig tickets, then suffered a prolonged attack of blondeness and forgot all about it. Said tickets wafted gracefully on to my desk yesterday, and once the cogs in my head torturously inched and shrieked into life, I grinned. Next Wednesday I will be spending the evening with the Manic Street Preachers, and all is well with the world. Huzzah!

Whine list

Before reading on, please be warned that I am being self-pitying and pathetic.

For various reasons, I haven't been able to do much with the blog lately. First, there is work. I'm currently stuck doing two people's jobs, and am beginning to feel the strain. This would be bearable - I don't mind working hard - but, because I often have to bring work home with me, my Open University course is suffering. I am going through the motions of studying, but nothing more. Fellow students are discussing topics (Katherine Mansfield at the moment) with a depth of understanding that is quite beyond me, and I feel utterly stupid and inadequate. Which isn't helped by the fact that I am doing no writing at all. I can feel the first stirrings of the urge to write: it is a quiet, thrumming build-up, not of words or plots or characters, but simply a need to daydream and imagine. And I can't. So I feel penned in and miserable, and there's no prospect of change in sight.

On the plus side, I did manage to do a three point turn during today's lesson, without causing irreparable damage to local kerbs.

Aw, shucks!

Big, juicy thanks to Cathy at My New Notebook for giving me this rather snazzy Rockin' Blogger award - it's a real pick-me-up at a time when life, work and studying seem to have combined in order to puree my poor little brain. After a good cogitate, I have decided to pass the award onto the spiffing Grumblog and Random Blethers, though it was a tricky choice as there are so many bloggers of quality doing their thang out there in the ether.

Quietly encouraged

Here I am in my nice new home, complete with a set of all-over bruises and a suspected cardboard rash. When I eventually unearthed the computer and smiled beseechingly at my other half until he set it up, I found a paradox in my inbox.
It was a good rejection. The editor concerned said he greatly enjoyed my story, but hadn't been able to fit it into the current issue of his magazine. He did, however, say that I was welcome to re-submit it for another edition. Yes, I know it's still a rejection, but it is a far easier one to take than the cold, detached form letters favoured by most publishers. I take this as rare but conclusive proof that not all editors are heartless swines, and feel a good deal chirpier about the whole writing business for it.

Upping sticks

This is just to let you know, dear reader, that I won't be doing any angsting for a few days. (Ok, ok, there's no need to cheer quite so loudly.) We're moving into a brand spanking new house this week, so I'll have neither the time nor the internet capability to go blethering on in my usual fashion.
I must say, though, that apart from the hair-tearing stress levels and the sudden ubiquity of brown tape and cardboard boxes, moving is a wonderful thing. It provides a perfect excuse for not doing any writing.

Birthday musings

I woke on Saturday morning(ish) to discover that I was suddenly a year older. I wasn't consulted on this - I received no Windows-esque pop-ups asking if I wanted to add the extra year to my age now, or to re-boot and add it later. It's all rather rude, if you ask me.
Despite this unrequested age increment, I had a jolly good day. An 8-hour round trip to London might not be everyone's idea of a birthday lark, but there is something about mindlessly sitting there and watching the miles tick by that soothes my mind. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment, reckless jaunt, by the way - we were off to see Prince. I couldn't honestly say that he's my absolute favourite artist, but it's mildly amusing to listen to the little pipsqueak banging on about how wonderful he is. Even better, I had the good fortune to be seated next to a madwoman. She danced like she was on the receiving end of some very high voltage, and was prepared to elbow anyone who got in her way. I began to feel that, even though I may be getting older, at least I am having a stab at maintaining some sort of dignity.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the fire brigade are at the door. Something about a cake fire raging out of control...